Fight Path: The gym was always home for three-sport pro Muhsin Corbbrey

Growing up, Muhsin Corbbrey had trouble finding a stable group to call his own.

The son of a white mother and a black father didn’t fully integrate with either race. He also lived in several places, from Tulsa, Okla., to California and, finally, in Berry, Ala., where he moved when he was a sophomore in high school.

Luckily, when he was a young boy, his father had the foresight to enroll him and his brother in martial arts and boxing classes at local gyms. Wherever he went, and whoever was around, he could always search out a nearby gym and continue training.

That comfort in physical preparation has led Corbbrey to a fighting career spanning three disciplines. Already an experienced professional boxer (with a 6-2-1 record) and Muay Thai fighter (9-1), Corbbrey has continued to advance in mixed martial arts (13-3).

His MMA career took another step earlier this week when the lightweight, who got his most high-profile experience in EliteXC, was signed to a multi-fight deal by the WEC. Corbbrey is slated to make his WEC debut on Sept. 2 as part of the organization’s “WEC: Cerrone vs. Henderson” show in Youngstown, Ohio.

By then, Corbbrey will have already endured a fighting journey that took him from inner-city California to uncomfortable rural Alabama to a party lifestyle to a more focused life as a converted Muslim. And, with the experience in multiple forms of fighting, Corbbrey has dedicated his life to physical preparedness and is a mixed martial artist in the truest sense, even going as far as starting his own gym in Savannah, Ga.

“My life is the gym,” Corbbrey told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I wake up, I train, I go home, and I do it again the next day. The only other constants in my life are Islam and my family. I train extensively in all three, so if I promoter calls for a fight in any of them, I’m ready to go. I try to always be ready to fight.”

The comfort of the gym

Corbbrey was just 8 when his father, raising his sons as a single parent, signed him up for the free elementary boxing and tae kwon do classes in Tulsa.

“It was an old ratty rec center room with a couple of heavy bags,” Corbbrey said with a laugh. “There were a couple guys with pro boxing experience, and they did the best they could with us. We were learning the basics: footwork, jabs, hooks. In tae kwon do, it was basic kicks.

“We were just inner-city knucklehead kids, and I don’t know how many of them stuck with it, but it did a lot for our lives to be in that room.”

When he was a sophomore in high school, Corbbrey moved with his bother to Berry, Ala., to live with his mother, who had won a custody battle. It was a culture shock for a boy who had lived within walking distance of many of his responsibilities. The Alabama countryside, with its cliques and prejudices, made for an uncomfortable living arrangement.

The unhappiness dragged down other parts of his life. He became a C student (even though he later took honors courses at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga.). Plus, he never got used to the looks from others around town.

“People looked at my mom strange,” Corbbrey said. “She was a white woman walking around with two black kids. My response was getting right back into tae kwon do, right back into training. Wherever I was growing up, I could always find some kind of gym. That was my focus, that kept me motivated, and I just tried to keep my head above water.”

With few thoughts of professional competition, Corbbrey faded in and out of a life of partying and girls. He took out some of his frustrations of his sometimes-difficult upbringing by rebelling, and his first priority was leaving tiny Berry.

The day he graduated from high school in 1996, his bags were literally packed. First stop: Atlanta.

A new faith, a new profession

Not long after leaving his mother’s home, Corbbrey was living a social lifestyle in big-city Georgia. At age 19, he stopped seeing the woman who would later become his life to search for more variety.

He soon met a woman who changed his life more drastically.

“I was just out and about, trying to meet girls,” Corbbrey said. “The first girl I met introduced me to Islam. We never really dated, just talked. I had gotten pretty far away from any kind of religion, so I studied it, I learned about it, and I couldn’t disprove it.”

While finding a religious faith, Corbbrey also met a man who would become a guiding force in his fighting career in now-manager Najeeb Odom. And so, within a few years of leaving an unhappy life in Alabama, Corbbrey was now focused on a new religion, new friends and a new commitment to fighting.

He met Manu Ntoh, one of the country’s premier Muay Thai instructors, who taught him one of his professional disciplines. Ntoh helped Corbbrey travel to Thailand to train and learn, which was part of his continued growth.

While taking his college classes, Corbbrey became involved in judo and jiu jitsu. He nurtured his hunger for training, which turned into a strong competitiveness in his professional careers.

“I want to be the guy who has titles in boxing and mixed martial arts and Muay Thai,” Corbbrey said. “Then you can say you’re a true mixed martial artist.”

To aid his training, Corbbrey and some companions opened Champions Training Center in its current Savannah location about six months ago, and the gym dominates his working life. In fact, a tattoo on his right wrist explains his priorities with three words: God, family, fighting.

Many MMA fans recognize Corbbrey from a recent MMA fight, a June 2008 EliteXC matchup against Nick Diaz, a fight that Corbbrey himself considers his most significant. It started strangely when Diaz failed to make weight and was nine pounds heavy for the 160-pound fight at the “EliteXC: Return of the King” event.

Corbbrey, though, still wanted to fight. He had won three straight heading into the event and had punished himself for eight weeks to train for the defining event. Diaz, of course, has since won three straight, including victories against Frank Shamrock and Scott Smith in Strikeforce events, so his resume is highly respected.

Corbbrey battled, but Diaz won the fight with a third-round TKO.

“He had a hard time with me, and it put a lot of things in perspective for me,” Corbbrey said. “Now I know I can fight and match up with anyone. It made me want to go that much harder, and I’m excited about where my career is going.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel is the lead features
writer for MMAjunkie.com. His weekly “Fight Path” column focuses on the
circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter
with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.

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